Man of the Series: The Indian spinner registered yet another impact-generating home Test series for both himself and the team.
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During the third day of the fourth Test of the ongoing England’s tour of India in Ahmedabad, India have not only just defeated England by an innings and 25 runs but also topped the points table of the inaugural ICC World Test Championship.
Trailing by 160 runs in the second innings, things were always going to be difficult for the visiting batsmen especially after considering how they’ve batted in this series.
What followed was another batting collapse with the Indian spin-duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel registering individual five-wicket hauls at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Barring rookie batsman Dan Lawrence (50*), none of the other English batsman was resilient enough to put together a fight against Ashwin and Patel.
Earlier this morning, it was Washington Sundar (96*) and Patel (43) who stitched a 106-run partnership for the eighth wicket to almost bat England out of the match.
Who won the Man of the Series award today?
India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was awarded with the ‘Man of the Series’ award for his all-round brilliance throughout the series. Ashwin, who finished the series as its leading wicket-taker, picked 32 wickets at an average and strike rate of 14.71 and 35.2 respectively which also included as many as three five-wicket hauls in four Tests.
In six innings with the bat in hand, Ashwin scored 189 runs at an average of 31.50 including a home Test century to be India’s third-highest run-scorer after opening batsman Rohit Sharma (345) and wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant (270).
Ashwin has won his 8th Man of the series award. Only two cricketers have won more. #INDvsENG pic.twitter.com/0vYcd4k6TI
— ESPNcricinfo stats (@ESPNcric_stats) March 6, 2021
“The fact that we qualified for the WTC final is very important. The intensity was low after Chennai, despite the high in Australia. Everytime there was a challenging time in the series, someone put their hand up, so this series win was right up there. The last four months have been quite a ride,” Ashwin told Star Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony today.
